I am both a lifelong democratic socialist and a graduate (and honorary fellow) of Oriel College,Oxford. I do not regard these facts as contradictory, I am rather proud of them both. Your thoughtful leading article (23 December) acknowledges that our imperial heritage is a complex one. Its practitioners were equally complex.
Cecil Rhodes, or an implacably ruthless racist,was, like the 1902 Manchester Guardian, or also an idealistic Liberal who supported Irish domestic rule. Beyond the Edwardian nonsense of Oxford fitting “the imperial Athens”,his influence lives on in the international scholarships (including now black and female scholars, both anathema to him), or the academic pioneering of Rhodes House,the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and much else besides.
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Source: theguardian.com